GENEVA, July 20, 2015 – Regarding a controversial vote scheduled this afternoon at UN headquarters in New York, UN Watch called on the world body’s 54-nation Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to reject the Sudan-sponsored decision by a subsidiary committee to recommend NGO status for a group intimately linked to the Hamas terrorist organization.

The vote today will approve or overturn the June 2nd decision by the 19-nation Committee on NGOs which voted in favor of the application by the Palestinian Return Centre, a Hamas affiliate in Europe, by a vote of 12 to 3.

Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union, Canada, Israel, Japan, and the United States, and, its armed wing is designated a terrorist organization by Australia and the United Kingdom.

Voting for the Hamas-linked group in June were committee members China, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, South Africa, Sudan, Azerbaijan, Guinea, Turkey, Pakistan and Mauritania.

The USA, Uruguay and Israel opposed the application, while India, Russia and Greece abstained. Burundi was absent.

Sudan initiated the vote, and a number of countries took the floor to voice their support, including Iran, which sponsors Hamas, slave-holding Mauritania, Cuba’s Communist regime — and, shamefully, South Africa.

The U.S. delegate, reported the UN, “questioned the nature of the group’s activities and leadership.”

Russia had abstained, “because it was in favor of the right of States to ask as many questions of an organization as necessary,” while Sudan’s rushed call for a vote put an early end to the vetting process, despite the PRC’s failure to answer pressing questions. “The accusations of ties to terrorism were very serious,” said Russia, and “if they were justified, they needed to be legally pursued.”

54-Nation ECOSOC Can Reject PRC

“ECOSOC, which has a better ratio of democracies to tyrannies than its subsidiary, has in the past often overturned highly problematic decisions such as this one,” saidUN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

“We appeal today to all ECOSOC member states to do the right thing and reject the Hamas-linked group’s illegitimate bid to subvert the UN. PRC officials routinely deploy antisemitic images and statements. If ECOSOC fails to reject a group so intimately tied to terror, the decision will cast a shadow upon the reputation of the UN as a whole.”